Open Design Alliance is a nonprofit organization creating

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...

s (SDKs) for engineering applications. ODA offers

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...

tools for CAD, BIM, and Mechanical industries including

.dwg DWG (from ''drawing'') is a proprietary binary file format used for storing two- and three- dimensional design data and metadata. It is the native format for several CAD packages including DraftSight, AutoCAD, BricsCAD, IntelliCAD (and i ...

.dxf AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs. DXF was introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCA ...

, .dgn,

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered ...

Revit Autodesk Revit is a building information modelling software tool for architects, landscape architects, structural engineers, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineers, designers and contractors. The original software was developed by ...

, Autodesk Navisworks, and

.ifc The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) is a CAD data exchange data schema intended for description of architectural, building and construction industry data. It is a platform-neutral, open data schema specification that is not controlled by a sing ...

files and additional tools for visualization, web development, 3D PDF publishing and modeling.

ODA products and supported file formats

CAD

* Drawings SDK is a development toolkit that provides access to all data in

and .dgn through an object-oriented API, allows creating and editing any type of .dwg or .dgn drawing file, and can be extended with custom .dwg objects. (Old names: Teigha Drawings, Teigha for .dwg files and Teigha for .dgn files; OpenDWG and DWGdirect; DGNdirect.) Drawings SDK also provides exchange of the following file formats to and from .dwg and .dgn: * Architecture SDK is a development toolkit for building .dwg-based architectural design applications. It offers interoperability with Autodesk Architecture files (old name: Teigha Architecture). * Civil SDK is a development toolkit for working with Autodesk Civil 3D files. The Civil API provides read/write access to data in civil custom objects (old name: Teigha Civil). * Map SDK is a development toolkit for working with Autodesk® Map 3D custom objects in any ODA-based application.

BIM

* BimRv SDK is a development toolkit for reading, writing, and creating .rvt and .rfa files. * IFC SDK is a development toolkit featuring 100% compatibility with the buildingSMART IFC standard. It offers a geometry building module for creating IFC geometry, which includes the ODA facet modeler and B-Rep modeler. * BimNv is a development toolkit for reading, visualizing and creating Autodesk Navisworks files. * Scan-To-BIM is a development toolkit for converting point cloud data to 3D BIM models.

Mechanical

* Mechanical SDK is a development toolkit for working with Autodesk Mechanical files. * STEP SDK is one of the newest ODA development toolkits; it provides access to STEP model data. In production since October 2022. * MCAD SDK is an open exchange platform for 3D MCAD file formats such as Inventor, IGES, Rhino, CATIA V4, CADDS, 3Shape DCM, CATIA V5, PLMXML, Parasolid, SolidWorks, Creo, STEP, SolidEdge, ProE, UG NX, CGR, CATIA V6, JT, and Procera.

ODA Core Platform Technologies

* Visualize SDK is a graphics toolkit designed for engineering applications development. * Web SDK uses Visualize SDK to embed engineering models into web pages and create web/SaaS applications. * Publish SDK is a development toolkit for creating 2D and 3D .pdf and .prc models. All PDFs are compatible with ISO standards and Adobe tools. Publish SDK can create PRC-based 3D PDF documents that contain full B-Rep models and can include animation, interactive views, part lists, etc.

History

* The Alliance was formed in February 1998 as the OpenDWG Alliance, with its initial release of code based on the AUTODIRECT libraries written by Matt Richards of MarComp. * In 2002, the OpenDWG library was renamed to DWGdirect. * And the same year, the alliance was renamed to Open Design Alliance. * On 22 November 2006,

sued the Open Design Alliance alleging that its DWGdirect libraries infringed Autodesk's trademark for the word "Autodesk", by writing the TrustedDWG code (including the word "AutoCAD") into DWG files it created. In April 2007, the suit was dropped, with Autodesk modifying the warning message in AutoCAD 2008 (to make it more benign), and the Open Design Alliance removing support for the TrustedDWG code from its DWGdirect libraries. * In 2008, support was added for .dgn files with DGNdirect. * In April 2010, DWGdirect was renamed to Teigha for .dwg files, OpenDWG was renamed to Teigha Classic and DGNdirect was renamed to Teigha for .dgn files. * Since August 2017 (v. 4.3.1), Teigha contains production support for version 2018 .dwg files, including architectural, civil and mechanical custom objects. * In February 2018 (v. 4.3.2), it was announced the availability of STL (stereolithography, is widely used for 3D printing and rapid prototyping) and OBJ (serves as an open exchange format for many 3D design solutions) file support. * In September 2018 Teigha brand was removed. * In October 2018 ODA started work on IFC Solution * In January 2019 Drawings 2019.2 introduced extrude and revolve 3d solid modeling operations as part of the standard SDK * In January 2019 ODA announced the release of its new BimNv SDK * In May 2020 ODA switched to monthly releases * In June 2020 ODA released its free Open IFC Viewer * In July 2021 ODA started development for STEP Support * In October 2021 ODA released its IFC validation engine * In January 2022 ODA started Scan-to-BIM development * In September 2022 ODA started MCAD SDK development * In October 2022 ODA released STEP SDK for production use

Membership

There are six types of ODA membership: * Educational: qualified university use only, 1 year limit * Non-commercial: any kind of internal automation for in-house use and R&D, 2 year limit * Commercial: limited commercial use (sell up to 100 copies), web/SaaS use not allowed * Sustaining: unlimited commercial use, web/SaaS use allowed * Founding: unlimited commercial use with full source code * Corporate: unlimited commercial use across multiple business units There is also a free trial period.

Releases

Open Design Alliance provides monthly production releases.

Annual ODA conference

Open Design Alliance holds an ODA conference every year in September. The two-day conference includes presentations from directors and developers and face-to-face meetings for non-members, members, ODA developers, and ODA executives. Anyone who is interested can register and attend the conference.

Members of the ODA (not exhaustive)

Corporate members

* Alias Limited * Allplan *

AVEVA AVEVA Group plc is a British multinational information technology consulting company headquartered in Cambridge, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company started as the Comp ...

Bricsys BricsCAD is a software application for computer-aided design (CAD), developed by Bricsys nv. The company was founded in 2002 by Erik de Keyser, a longtime CAD entrepreneur. In 2011 Bricsys acquired the intellectual property rights from LedasRalph ...

Dassault Systemes Dassault Group (; also GIM Dassault or Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault SAS) is a French group of companies established in 1929 with the creation of Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (now Dassault Aviation) by Marcel Dassault, and led by son Se ...

Nemetschek Nemetschek Group is a vendor of software for architects, engineers and the construction industry. The company develops and distributes software for planning, designing, building and managing buildings and real estate, as well as for media and ent ...

* Design Data Corporation *

Graphisoft Graphisoft SE is a Hungarian design software company headquartered in Budapest, Hungary. As a subsidiary of Nemetschek, Graphisoft develops Building Information Modeling software products for architects, interior designers and planners. Graphis ...

Hexagon AB Hexagon AB is a publicly listed global information technology company specializing in hardware and software digital reality that was founded in 1992 and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Hexagon's B share is listed on the list of large companie ...

Intergraph Intergraph Corporation was an American software development and services company, which now forms part of Hexagon AB. It provides enterprise engineering and geospatially powered software to businesses, governments, and organizations around the w ...

* IronCAD * Knowledge Base *

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

* Nanosoft * OpenText Corp * Shenzhen Jiang & Associates Creative Design *

Spatial Corp Spatial Corporation was founded in 1986, and had one main product: ACIS, the first commercially available 3D modeling kernel. Through subsequent years, Spatial added products to its portfolio that enabled ISVs mostly in the CAD/CAM industries, t ...

* Vianova Systems AS

Founding members

* 4M SA * Accusoft Corporation * Advanced Computer Solutions * Andor Corporation * Beijing Glory PKPM Technology *

Bentley Systems Bentley Systems, Incorporated is an American-based software development company that develops, manufactures, licenses, sells and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure. The company' ...

* BlueCielo ECM Solutions * Software *

Central South University Central South University (CSU; ) is a national public university in Changsha, Hunan, China. The university is sponsored by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, China Ministry of Education. It is a Chinese state Double Fir ...

* Chongqing Chinabyte Network Co Ltd * CSoft Development * EntIT Software LLC *

Epic Games Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, M ...

Esri Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...

* Glodon * Graebert GmbH * GRAITEC INNOVATION SAS * Gstarsoft * Haofang Tech *

Hilti Hilti Corporation (Hilti Aktiengesellschaft or Hilti AG, also known as Hilti Group) is a Liechtensteiner multinational company that develops, manufactures, and markets products for the construction, building maintenance, energy and manufacturi ...

* Hyland * IMSI/Design *

IntelliCAD IntelliCAD is a Computer-aided design, CAD editor and development platform with an Application Programming Interface Api, API published by the IntelliCAD Technology Consortium ("ITC") through shared development. IntelliCAD emulates the basic inter ...

* Intrasec * ITI TranscenData * MIDAS Information Technology *

Onshape Onshape is a computer-aided design (CAD) software system, delivered over the Internet via a software as a service (SAAS) model. It makes extensive use of cloud computing, with compute-intensive processing and rendering performed on Internet-bas ...

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

Photron Photron is an international company that manufactures high-speed digital cameras based in Tokyo, Japan, with offices in San Diego, California & United Kingdom. The Photron FASTCAM cameras are used for capturing high speed images and playing thes ...

* Relativity * Robert McNeel And Associates * Safe Software * Shandong Hoteam Software * Shenzhen ZhiHuiRuiTu Information Technology *

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

* Stabiplan * Trimble * UNIFI Labs *

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania is a non-stock, not-for-profit organization headquartered in Warwick, New York. It is the main legal entity used worldwide by Jehovah's Witnesses to direct, administer and disseminate doc ...

* ZwCAD Software

References

External links

* {{CAD software Computer-aided engineering software Information technology organizations CAD file formats Open formats